


Lost horizon, found love

by waterlilyinclearwater



Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen (Band)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Valentine's Day, unexpected gift
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-22 10:42:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22714768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waterlilyinclearwater/pseuds/waterlilyinclearwater
Summary: Jim was just minding his own business as a hairdresser in central London. Then one day, a famous singer comes along for a haircut.For the prompt 'unexpected valentine's day gifts'
Relationships: Jim Hutton & Freddie Mercury, Jim Hutton/Freddie Mercury
Comments: 6
Kudos: 30
Collections: Dork Lovers Server Challenges





	Lost horizon, found love

**Author's Note:**

> For Zee, happy valentine's day and I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> I sneaked in a little of the 'dressing up in something sexy and feeling silly about it'-prompt, see if you can spot it ;)

The bell dinged as another customer entered his shop. Jim looked up for a moment to see a man walk in, sporting the same moustache he saw when he looked in the mirror. He nodded at the man to acknowledge that he’d been seen, then focused on his current costumer again.   
The man sat down in one of the chairs in the waiting area and entertained himself with one of the magazines.

* * *

It took a little while before anyone came to see Freddie. There was only one hairdresser in the shop for as far as he could see, and he was busy. He acknowledged Freddie as he walked in, then paid attention to his hands again.   
Freddie took one of the magazines on the table, and opened it about midway. At one glance he could see the magazine didn’t interest him, so he took that as a sign to check out the hairdresser.   
Glimpsing over the rim of his magazine, he could inconspicuously observe him while he worked.

The man seemed to be about Freddie’s age, and wore the same moustache as him. While he wasn’t fat, it was clear he liked his food. Freddie smiled. The man was whistling to himself as he worked on the woman’s hair, hands working with experience. It wasn’t a tune he was familiar with, and while the whistling was a bit out of key, he found himself enjoying it anyway.

When the woman’s hair was done and had made sure the woman was content with her haircut, he showed her out and took the time to clean up, seemingly in no hurry to get to his next costumer.   
At last he came over, inviting him into the chair.

“Sorry for the wait, my colleague came down sick so I’ll have to manage on my own today.” The man sported an Irish accent. Interesting. He also seemed to either not notice or not care that he was alone with the lead singer of one of the most successful rock bands of the time. Also interesting.   
The man went on about small things like the weather and chicken soup and other things that can help or not help a cold.   
Freddie found himself relaxing as the man gently tugged on his hair and lulled on. He occasionally chipped in with some comments, but mostly left the talking to Jim until they slipped in a comfortable silence. At some point Jim asked what Freddie did for a living. When Freddie mentioned he was a singer in a band and the only reaction he got was “Does that really pay the bills?” he knew for sure that this man had no idea who he was. He decided to leave it like that, revelling in the comfortable atmosphere in the small hairdresser’s shop, not wanting break the spell by mentioning his hectic life. Instead he opted for a vague: “Hmm, for some people.”   
Jim scoffed at that.

“Yeah, for some people it does. You wouldn’t believe how much some of them earn. What do you even do with that kind of money?”   
“What would you do?” Freddie asked.   
Jim contemplated his answer for some time. “I don’t really know,” he admitted. “I’d like to think I’d share it. I don’t really need that much.”   
This answer surprised Freddie, and he eyed the younger man curiously.   
“Isn’t there anything you’d like for yourself?”   
“Well, there is this book I really want.” Jim replied after a short hesitation. “Lost horizon. My father owned a copy of it in which he made some notes. We had to sell it after…” Jim’s voice trailed off. “Forgive me, I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”   
“Can you not buy it back from the person you sold it to?”   
“Maybe, but we sold it to the bookshop down the road, I don’t know if you know it? They want more for it than they paid us for it, and I cannot miss that much money right now. Not for a book I’ve already read. Anyway, that is you done.”

Jim finished brushing off stray hairs from Freddie’s neck. Freddie thanked him and left the shop without saying another word.

* * *

When Jim comes to work next Tuesday, having forgotten all about the conversation, he finds a neatly wrapped package on the doorstep. Curiously, he picks it up. It’s not like the Post Office to just leave it out here on the sidewalk.   
When he inspects it, he sees his name written on it, but no address. This means someone must have personally dropped it off.

Curiously, he opens the door to the shop and absentmindedly put his bag on the table. The door is still open, allowing a cold wind to enter the dark shop, and his bag is moments away from falling, but he doesn’t care. Eyes still firmly fixed on the package, he finds a pair of scissors to carefully cut through the tape.  
When he unfolds the paper, his eyes widen in surprise. In his hands, he’s holding a copy of ‘Lost Horizon’. He slowly, carefully turns the cover. Even in the dim light that comes from the moon outside, his father’s markings are unmistakable. Jim can’t even bring himself to blink, afraid it’ll be gone when he opens his eyes again.

He looks up at the door, as if the unknown giver would suddenly present himself there. He wonders who would just leave something like this on the doorstep. The moon shining brightly through the wildly swaying branches of the tree on the other side of the road offers no answer.

He is astounded, overjoyed, and yet a little dismayed that there is no mention of the sender. Why would someone go through the effort of getting something he wanted so badly and dropping it off at his work personally, without even mentioning a name? Don’t they know it’s rude to not thank someone for a gift? And yet, secretly Jim is also a little glad. He has no idea how he would ever be able to thank someone for a gift as generous and thoughtful as this.

In the darkness of his shop, with the wind still howling outside and making its way inside unhindered by the still open door, he sits down with his back to the counter and cradles his book.

* * *

Over the course of the next few days, Jim finds himself paying more attention to what he lets slip to his costumers and who comes by the shop. By now he’s worked out that it must be someone who knows where he works, but probably doesn’t know where he lives. If they had known, it would have made more sense to drop it off at his there. He spent all day at the shop, so it could have been waiting for him when he got home, or left at one of his neighbours’ (they were nice enough to accept packages for him. Something that Jim was really glad for, seeing as the only one in his home during the day was Mila. Mila wouldn’t be of much help however, considering that she was a cat.) It would also have meant that the giver wouldn’t have had to get up that early. Then maybe they always did, Jim reasoned. He really couldn’t know, as he had nothing to go on. He’d asked everyone he knew who could possibly have known he wanted this copy so much, repeatedly, but that hadn’t brought him any closer to the actual giver. When he had asked the owner of the shop next door if they’d seen anything, they suggested it might be a valentine’s gift, but as far as Jim was aware he didn’t have any secret admirers.

So he was left to dropping hints to his costumers and observing their reaction very closely through the mirror. Up till today, that hadn’t yielded any results however. He was on the verge of giving up, and letting the unknown giver stay unknown forever, when _he_ walked in.

* * *

Jim didn’t really recognise him at first. The man had only been here once after all. It wasn’t until he made a comment about the book that Jim perked up. Eyeing the man suspiciously (but not so suspicious as to become impolite, he was a costumer after all), he asked, “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“I asked if you had gotten your hands on one of the copies of Lost Horizon yet. You mentioned you were looking for it last time, no?”   
The man schooled his features into an innocent mask. Too innocent for Jim’s liking.   
“That is correct, and as a matter of fact, I have. I got it as a gift for Valentine’s Day this year.”   
“Ah, you’re very lucky then dear. Your girlfriend must be really into you.” His costumer suddenly looked very interested in one of the products on the edge of the sink as he asked. Jim wasn’t buying any of it.   
“Yeah well to be honest, I have no idea who gave it to me. Just found it on the doorstep one day. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”   
“Why would I know, dear? Do you think I know who gave it to you?” At this point Jim was done with his costumer’s manners. He crossed his arms, temporarily stopping his work. “Actually, I think you do.” Jim almost didn’t recognise his own voice. He sounded very sure about it, but he was willing to accuse anyone of giving it to him by this point.

Freddie turned the chair around, suddenly very close to the hairdresser who refused to take a step backwards.   
Jim was all too aware that Freddie had had to spread his legs in order for this to comfortably fit, and was trying his hardest not to glance down. This was already way too inappropriate, he couldn’t make it any worse. Freddie did not seem bothered by the inappropriateness of it all, and leaned in even closer. Jim had to fight the urge to see if there were any costumers watching this but refused to back down from the staring contest with the smaller man.

“Aren’t you supposed to be doing my hair?” Freddie suggested.   
“You haven’t answered my question yet.” Jim wasn’t going to give up now.   
“How about you finish this haircut, and meet me at the corner of Howland street and Charlotte street by 6. Then I’ll tell you all you want to know. Sounds fair?”   
“Turn around then,” he instructed, and set to work again as soon as Freddie obeyed. They said nothing for the rest the haircut, and Jim watched the man walk out of his shop in silence.

* * *

Later that evening, Jim found himself standing on the corner his costumer had mentioned, anxiously looking around. It was cold and windy but thankfully dry. Jim decided to finally follow his mother’s advice and wear a shawl on top of the too fancy clothes he was wearing. He never wore them as they made him feel uncomfortable, but he had wanted to look good tonight. It felt like every fibre of his being warned him against being here, as if it was wrong somehow. Although, he reasoned, meeting a stranger on a mostly deserted street corner didn’t really sound like a great plan if you didn’t want to get robbed or murdered.

He looked around, but there was still no one there. His watch told him it was 6:15 pm. Maybe the man was just taking a piss at him, and Jim couldn’t blame him, he hadn’t really acted like a rational being this morning. He shook his head, imagining what it should have been like for the man. He was just expecting to get his hair cut, then gets accused of giving his hairdresser a gift for valentine’s day, like that was somehow a terrible thing. No, Jim couldn’t really blame him if he wouldn’t show up. He just wished he’d had more of this rationality earlier, but it seemed to have gotten lost at that moment.

After waiting some more time, he decided to go home. The man was obviously not coming. He stared at his shoes, trying to squash this feeling of hopelessness and rejection that was fighting its way up.   
Because he wasn’t looking where he was going, he collided with something hard. For a brief moment the hope rose again, thinking that maybe he’d walked into the man. But no, it had been a tree. He cursed and rubbed his forehead, wishing he had never decided to come here. He kept his head down the entire way back to his house, but made sure to pay more attention to where he was going.   
It was a pity he did though, because if he had decided to look back, maybe even once, he’d have seen his lonely figure was replaced with another one, also anxiously looking around, hoping he wasn’t too late.

* * *

Jim had made his favourite comfort food, exactly the way his mother used to make it. The familiar gestures of cutting and stirring gave him a distraction for a while. However, it didn’t taste as good as it usually did. After a couple of bites, he decided he’d had enough and put the leftovers in the fridge.   
He cracked open a beer and dropped himself on the couch. He zapped through the television channels listlessly, not really interested in anything that was on the telly right now.

Sometime later, he heard a knock on his door. A quick glance at the clock told him it was 10 pm. Strange, who would come to his door at this time?   
When he opened his door he was met with the face he spend half an hour searching for earlier that day.

“Hi.” Jim said, more confused than anything else.   
“Hi.”   
“You’ve ruined your hair. I made it so nice today, what’d you do that for?”   
“That was the wind, darling.” The man blew on his hands and rubbed them together in an attempt to warm them up. “Mind if I come in?”   
“I don’t even know your name and you show up at my doorstep at this time. How did you even find me?”   
“It’s Freddie.”

Jim attempted to sceptically raise one eyebrow before remembering his face never complied with that specific request and simply made him look like a fool. So instead he stepped aside, and let the cold man into his home. As Freddie put his coat away and continued rubbing his hands in an attempt to warm them up (or more likely, to make sure Jim knew he was cold), Jim offered him a beer.   
Freddie’s stomach growled, and he acknowledged he hadn’t eaten yet.   
“Why not? It’s 10 pm?”   
“Well I was supposed to eat with you, wasn’t I, darling? You look gorgeous by the way.”

Jim looked down to find out he was still wearing his fancy clothing. He blushed, feeling silly.   
"Thank you. I never wear anything like this." Feeling self-conscious, he tried to subtly adjust his clothes.   
"And you wear it for me? I'm flattered." Freddie said it in a flirting manner, but Jim could tell he was genuine.

With a smile, he reheated the food he’d made. While potatoes don’t usually reheat well, he found these taste a lot better sharing them with Freddie than when he was eating them on his own a couple of hours back. And they share more than just food and drink.   
Jim had never imagined he could possibly be bothered by the fact that it was impossible to properly tune a piano, but there he was, completely sucked into Freddie’s story. Pretty soon it was very late, and Jim cried a little inside when he realised he still had to come into work tomorrow, but it was completely worth it.

When he waved the older man goodbye the next day and watches him leave, the thought of the book creeped into his mind. He’d completely forgotten to ask if Freddie had indeed been the one to give it! But as he was thinking of that, he realised he didn’t really care about finding the one who gave him the book anymore. He’d found Freddie, and that was worth so much more.


End file.
